Let’s Get “Inside Jennifer Welles!”
Cinema of the 70’s had a number of stars who went back and forth between mainstream film and hardcore movies, and Jennifer Welles was one of the most popular!
Welles grew up in New Jersey, but when she was getting started she
moved to Las Vegas to dance in opening acts for comedians such as Jack Benny and the comedy duo of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.
By the end of the 1960’s, she married Musician Manny Duran and started acting in low-budget softcore sexploitation films in New York, right at the time that films were becoming more daring and explicit.
The films had lurid titles like “Scorpio 70”, along with “The Female Response” and “Expose Me Lovely.”
Jennifer Welles became a very popular Actress and Model, appearing in a number of men’s magazines as well.
In the mid-1970’s, after turn forty, she transitioned into the adult world of explicit films like these:
“Sweet Cakes” and “Confessions of a Young American Housewife”
Here are two great examples of adult films that were more than just sex.
In “Sweet Cakes” Welles plays Interviewer Jennifer Fox, who speaks with a publisher of an erotic magazine – and he shares his stories of lust and sex.
Joe Sarno directed “Housewife”, the story of a conservative housewife who stays at the house of her sexually open daughter – and is soon involved in her daughter’s liberated lifestyle!
“Abigail Lesley Is Back in Town”
This is another well done Joe Sarno film, about a woman who leaves town after being caught with another woman’s husband – but she returns to wreck havoc on the men and women of town once again.
In 1977, she made her best known film, the candid XXX-rated effort called “Inside Jennifer Welles”. The film was so popular that an R-rated version was rushed out as well.
Welles also won the Erotica Award for Best Actress that same year for “Little Orphan Sammy”.
Still, at the height of her success, it all ended!
She abruptly left the industry after getting married in 1977.
A few years ago she admitted in a rare interview that she had a few close friends who knew her past. She also said that she attended church regularly and had no regrets about her film career.
Sadly, Jennifer Welles died in 2018.
Welles was one of the first Actresses to movie between mainstream and hardcore filmmaking – and today, we have another:
Maitland Ward starred in the hit TV show “Boy Meets World”, but has now transitioned to adult filmmaking:
You can see her most recent film by clicking on my story here:
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Categories: 70's Films, Artsploitation, Cult Classics, Exploitation Films, Extreme Cinema, Grindhouse, JRsploitation, Nudity, sex kittens, Sexploitation Films, Talent / Celebrites
Great tribute, John. Outside of your blog, I had never heard of her.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Thanks Pete…that was the “golden age” of pornography!
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